Thule Gesellschaft Rising

After finishing in the hospital pharmacy, the group headed upstairs to the third floor to the room Tsgt Wright used to recover in while hiding in the hospital. The tense trip up the stairwell and to the room proved to be uneventful. Things began to change very quickly after recovering the stock pile of ammunition the Tsgt left behind. The group first realized that there was twelve biker gang members riding down the street towards the retail area the group had been searching over the last week. Putting the bikers out of their minds for the moment, they decided to continue toward the school for the gear Amy was looking to collect. As the group got ready to leave the room, the power comes back on. They head for the stairwell they originally used to exit the building a week ago. As the group gets to the corner, they realize there we four infected in the hallway. Then things go wrong.

Waking up in the morning, the group decides their two main objectives for the day, getting supplies from the nearby Walgreens and the Sports Authority. The ladies slowly make their way to the Walgreens, moving cautiously to avoid any of the infected they spot. Clarice quickly opened the back door to the store, and the group spent time going through the stock area determining what supplies they could make use of before venturing into the store proper.

Mary, Amy and Clarice set up their experiment with a stereo, and move two streets over to wait and see if the infected would be attracted. When the power did come back on, as suspected the infected did move toward the house, but did not begin to moan, so was only limited in its effectiveness of attracting the infected. During the wait for the power, Mary generated a hand-drawn map of the retail area their group was headed towards, and the decision was made to visit the pharmacy in the Naperville Plaza, as they felt food was temporally not their biggest concern.

Checking the pharmacy in the Naperville Plaza, the group realized that there were infected in the store and decided to look in other locations rather than confronting them. Deciding to head over the the Lowe’s on the far side of retail area, the group decides to move on. While moving through a neighborhood, Clarice in the point position, passes a house and missing the group of infected between two houses, who proceed to move out to the street and toward Mary and Amy who are following behind Clarice. Running to catch up to Clarice, the group decides to loss the growing number of moaning infected, but decide continuing in the direction they were headed would not be the best course of action. They decide to cut through the backyard of several housing and cut north to head toward the Naperville Walmart.

Once reaching the Walmart parking lot, the group realizes they have a large number of infected in the parking lot that they will have to find a way to get to the store without being seen. Clarice comes up with a plan, knowing that the infected will check on large noises, she volunteers to silently move to one of the cars and start it up and jury-rigging the car to move through the parking lot to attract the infected away from the entrance to the store. Clarice pulls off her plan will no infecting noticing her, and the group moves into the entrance of the store. Once inside, the group listens into the dimly lit store, lighted only by the few open skylights. Realizing something or someone is in the store, a new plan is developed. Send Clarice to the far side of the store with on of the flashlights to set up and try to attach whatever is in the store. It take Clarice 20 minutes to move across the front of the store, set up the flashlight in the produce section and moving back to Mary and Amy. The group the moves along the wall to the back of the store, through toys, and automotive, then across the back of the store through electronics to sporting goods. Collecting camping gear, including a tent, portable grill, Sterno, multi-tools, bows and arrows. Once happy with the gear found in sporting goods, the group heads back to electronics for some wire, cables and available batteries. During the time in sporting goods, the group realizes that the flashlight used to attract the infected inside the store had been knocked over, and that the infected had begun moving back into other parts of the store. The group moves from electronics to the front of the store and realize the car distracting had been investigated and forgotten by the outside infected. Clarice again moves quietly into the parking lot, siphon gas from the tank of one of the nearby cars to get a pool in the parking lot and then lights the pool. When the group realizes that “unlike the movies” the car would not be exploding, they decide to to the back of the store to check to see if that would be a safer way of exiting the building. One thing the group did discover with the fire, the infected instincts did keep them from moving into the fires.

Moving to the back of the store, the group realizes that there is no light in the warehouse area of Walmart, and listening they realize there are more than likely either infected or animals in the warehouse area. First Mary pulls a sock over her flashlight to give her a little light, but not shine to give away their position. The group them finds a pallet jack and quietly moves a pallet from the nearest stock bin and place it in front of the door to prevent anyone from in the store coming into the warehouse area. Then the three ladies begin making there way down the aisle, about half way down they hear a movement, but can’t tell whether it is on their aisle or on one of the aisles on either side of them. They decide to continue forward, rather than turn back, which works out as they quickly pass by the noise and realize it is coming from one of the other aisles. Coming to the end of the aisle, the stop to listen and hear noises coming from both ends of the warehouse. Following the wall, the groups stays together until they feel the noise coming towards them is getting close, then Clarice and Amy duck down the nearest aisle to wait, and jump out to take care of whatever is continuing towards Mary. In the darkness, both miss the infected passing by. The infected grabs Mary, but before the other two can jump in, Mary performs a reverse arm bar, and pins the infected to the wall, drops her flashlight and draws her pistol and puts the infected down. Clarice realizing that the noise will attract other infected, grabs the flashlight, removes the sock and runs off to find the exit, while Mary and Amy get everything together. Clarice returns and drags the group to the exit.

Once outside, they realize they made a good decision as there are only six infected behind the Walmart. The group is temporarily safe from the infected as the load dock area is lower than the street level, but they realize that four of the infected will eventually find them if they don’t come up with a plan. Mary tries to pull the four infected away from them by throwing a lug nut found in the loading area, which does begin to draw two of the four infected towards the other two that the group has cover from. The decision is made to shot the infected, as the group has time to shoot the six behind the building and move on before the infected in the front of the store can make it to the back to see what the loud noise was. Mary and Clarice decide to have Amy use her rifle to shot the two visible first and then have her shot the other four as they come around to look into the noise. Amy makes short work of the six infected, and the three ladies move across the street into the nearby neighborhood, moving cautiously as the had to rely on the eyes, since their hearing was shot due to the six loud rifle shoots from behind the Walmart. With night coming on and supplies weighing them down, the ladies decide to find a house in the neighborhood to stay for the night, rather than risk the trip back to their safe house with the their hearing impaired.

They settle on a house they find, that looks secure, other than several of the upper story windows being broken. Checking the outside of the house, they verify all the windows are secure and the front and back doors are locked. Clarice makes short work of the front door lock, and the group moves inside. The group moves together, quickly checking each room and quickly realize that the house is empty both of the living and the infected, and that the windows must have been broken by vandals or the weather. Once everyone feels safe, Mary moves to the kitchen and begins to prepare food for everyone, and the group sits down to enjoy their tuna salad and crackers. Everyone is surprised as they wrap up their meal, the power comes on. Everyone decides its time to clean up, and Amy goes up to shower, and Mary and Clarice decide to take turns taking a bath in the master suite. Everyone cleaned up, the group meets in the basement for drinks. Amy grabs a bottle, and proceeds upstairs and barracks herself in one of the bedrooms. While Mary mixes drinks for herself and Clarice. Clarice never a drinker, quickly becomes drunk and gets sick. Mary gets her water and sits with her to comfort her, and both sleep on the couch in the basement for the evening.

After staying the night in the remains of Mary’s house, the groups decided to split up for gathering supplies. Mary and Clarice would stay in Naperville to find food and other necessities, while the other three would head into greater Chicago and head to the FBI offices in hopes of finding weapons for the group. Once the group heads for town, Mary and Clarice walking to the retail stores in Naperville. Clarice taking the point position ahead of Mary to keep an eye out for any danger. Within a few blocks of leaving Mary’s house, Mary begins to feel like she is being followed and when see turns around, sees a 20-something year old woman following her, the young lady carrying a machete and a large rifle strapped across her back. Clarice eventually realizes that Mary has stopped and starts backtracking and discovers Mary talking to a stranger. The decision is made that the stranger, Amy, would join the group, and after a short backtrack to her hide out for more ammo, they begin heading back toward the retail shops.

Clarice again taking point, they set off. After an hour of travel, checking bodies and the occasional, they discover various bits of supplies, including a few additional weapons and food. Clarice stops for the two to catch up when she discovers an unusually dressed in black military fatigues and an unusual sun or star shaped patch (see below) and a pewter flask with a similar design. While looking around in the area, they discover what looks to be an unmolested and unoccupied house. After a little work by Clarice on the door lock, the group entered the house to find it full of supplies and necessities, and after a brief discussion, the decision was made to relocate from Mary’s house to the more secure location. As the investigation of the house continued, Clarice began checking the first floor for ways to secure the doors and windows, Amy checking the study for any books to add to her collection and Mary proceeded upstairs to check the second floor. Mary checked the first bedroom, and as soon as she opened the door she heard creaking in the bed and discovered a ghoul child. Mary shut the door, and as the first child began to moan, the moans picked up in the next room, and then more for the third room. Mary called the remaining girls upstairs and began planning how to take care of the ghoul problem in the house. The decision to take one room at a time, with Mary and Clarice holding down the ghoul, while Amy put a bullet in the head. The first two rooms went as planned. But the third room became a little more difficult when it was realized there where two ghouls. As Mary and Clarice push the door open and pushed the ghouls back, Amy fired an put the first bullet through the males torso, staggering the ghoul. As the second ghoul began to rush Mary, Clarice used her ax and hit the ghoul in the leg, slowing her as Mary put a bullet through the ghouls head. Amy ended up putting a second bullet in the males torso. The male again staggered, is unable to get to any of the women. Mary decides the use her martial arts training to trip and pin the male and allowing Amy easily finish off the last ghoul. Mary and Amy then proceeded to bury the four bodies in the backyard, while Clarice works on securing the house and ensuring the gun fire didn’t draw unwanted attention.

After all the excitement, the group realized that it was too late in the day to continue to the retail stores, but they could go back and get the rest of their supplies from Mary’s house and Amy’s hideout. While at the house Amy was using to hide in, Clarice discovered a pair of boxes containing glass Christmas ornaments and bells, which she decided would be great for preparing early warning signs for their new shelter. Once the three got back to the house Mary headed to the kitchen to fix food for everyone, Clarice headed to the living room to play her discovered PSP and Amy continuing to go through the medical book and journals in the study. While eating Amy provides the ladies with the information about what happened over the last three months while they were in a coma. Hearing that the greatest concentration of the ghouls is in the metro areas of the largest cities began to worry Mary and Clarice since they had not heard from their companions over their walkie-talkies, but came to the realization that they were smart enough to turn around before being overwhelmed, and that they probably had taken refuge for the night. During the night, power comes on in the neighborhood, and Clarice uses the time to see if she can get on the internet and do some research. She more detailed information, fleshing out the information that Amy had already provided and after sharing her research, Mary realizes that the “Event” happened on the spring equinox, and that their group woke up on the summer solstice.

June 23, 2014 – Naperville IL

The next morning, the group decides to continue their task of gathering supplies and begins heading for the retail stores. Clarice taking the point position again and continuing to check for supplies on bodies. After about an hour, Clarice decides to hold up for Mary and Amy to catch up to her. While they are discussing their situation, four ghouls come around of a house. Mary comes up with a quick plan, for her and Amy to run across the street into the backyard of a house and attract the group of ghouls, Clarice would then come behind and close the fence, while Mary and Amy jump the back wall of the fence to get away. The group realizes the moaning of the four ghouls is being picked up by others, and that the others are beginning to move in the direction of the house. Mary comes up with the idea to find a place to hide and see what happens. Clarice hides in the backyard across the street from where the ghouls were trapped, while Mary and Amy move three houses back, and hides in the backyard. Both groups see the additional ghouls moving down the street, headed for the area where the original trapped ghouls are. Once the Clarice makes her way over a few fences between her and the rest of the group, a new plan is hatched. The group decides to move several blocks west and find a house that can be set up to attract as many ghouls as possible the next time the power cycles back on. The first choice of a house looks good, but once they open the door, they hear the ominous moans of a ghoul, and no sooner do they close the door and move away, they here something run into the door. The group them moves next door and investigates and determines the house is empty. They do find a few more supplies for them to add to their stockpile, and a stereo to use to hopefully attract the ghouls and maybe pull some from the retail area.

Everyone wakes up and meet each other in the ICU of Naperville Hospital. While the rest of the group searches the ICU room for supplies, the marine begins searching hospital ICU nurses station and discovers one dead soldier against one side of the counter, killed by a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head. Further searching of the area he discovers the bodies of two patients with multiple gun shot wounds to the body and head, but mysteriously lacking any blood pool around the body. The search of the ICU leads to the discovery of some useful supplies, a few medications, several bottles of water, a Colt M1911A1 pistol and a Mossberg M590A1 shotgun, though no ammunition was discovered in the ICU area for either of the two weapons.

After completing the search of the ICU, the group proceeds to check the ICU doctor’s offices, janitor’s closet, and staff break area. In one of the offices, a news paper is discovered with a front page headline “THEDEADWALK”, no one believes the headline is correct looking for more natural explanations, such as drugs or bath salts. Mary keeps the paper. The group is able to find scrubs and clothing to replace their hospital gowns, though many in the group remain without shoes. The group was able to get matches, junk food, nuts and granola bars in the break room, medical files and doctor’s notes in several of the offices, though no one can find anything useful in the material, a Fire Ax is discovered in emergency fire station near the stairwell. Another disturbing find by the marine, a trail of bodies of more patients and staff who look to have be shot by the earlier discovered shotgun. He is unable to piece together what happened, the dead are unarmed, but clearly the soldier was trying to get away and shoot his pursuers. Continues to notice the lack of blood around the bodies of the dead.

The group decides to take the stair well down the six flights of stairs to the first floor. They use material found on the six floor to create a torch as they notice part of the stairwell is dark. Making their way down they stop on the fifth and fourth floors to collect two extra fire axes. On the third floor the group elected to skip the fire ax, when the group heard movement near the stairwell and the marine was determined no one should investigate, but refused to deliberate on his concerns until they were outside the building. After a brief discussion by the group, the decision was made that they would continue down to the first floor and could potentially return when they are better prepared.